U.S. plans to cease Vieques bombing

Navy exercises to end by '03 after White House shift

WASHINGTON — The White House, bowing to increasing political pressure and Puerto Rican protests, will halt bombing on the island of Vieques by 2003, congressional officials confirmed Wednesday.

The Navy had fought hard to keep its training facility on the small island off mainland Puerto Rico, calling the controversial exercises there essential to military readiness and saying that no other locale was suitable for battle simulations.

The Bush administration's abrupt policy shift came at a White House meeting Wednesday that included President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, Navy Secretary Gordon England and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

The Navy is expected to officially announce this week that it will leave Vieques by 2003 and use the time until then to look for an alternative training plan, said Rep. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

"The White House, through Karl Rove, made a political decision," Menendez said. "They're getting enormous public pressure. People are beginning to understand ... and say it's not right to be bombing in a place with 9,000 citizens."

Menendez and other Puerto Ricans have long fought to oust the Navy from Vieques, especially after an errant bomb killed a civilian guard on the range in 1999. The Navy has since stopped using live ammunition.

Menendez and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called the victory over the Navy hollow, because bombing will continue for another two years. "Not one additional bomb or bullet should fall on Vieques," said Billy Weinberg, spokesman for Gutierrez. The Illinois congressman was arrested in April during protests on the island.

But the Navy intends to continue training during the next two years and will keep to its schedule, with bombing beginning again on Monday. A new round of U.S. Navy exercises began off the coast of Vieques on Wednesday with 11 ships and 10,000 sailors practicing battle formations.

"We have not made any decision changing our current status on Vieques," said a Navy spokesman who noted that an announcement is expected Thursday. "We continue to explore our best ways to achieve our overarching objective, which is to effectively deploy naval forces. For the near term that must include the use of the facilities at Vieques."

The Bush administration's policy shift may have taken into account the president's chances with Puerto Rican voters in 2004, his brother's re-election campaign for governor of Florida and the re-election chances of Republican New York Gov. George Pataki, Menendez said.

Gutierrez raised the temperature on the debate again last week during a Congressional Hispanic Caucus hearing when he said he was kicked, forced to sleep in a roofless shed and otherwise mistreated by Navy officers after his arrest.

Among the nearly 200 protesters arrested with Gutierrez in April were Al Sharpton, Robert Kennedy Jr. and actor Edward James Olmos. When Sharpton and three other New York City politicians got stiff jail sentences, the headlines raised new interest in the long-standing battle. Sharpton remains in jail, serving a 90-day sentence.

The Navy uses Vieques to conduct exercises that combine aerial bombing, amphibious landings and ship-to-shore bombing. The maneuvers, which include the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, involve ships practicing attack formations, evading submarines and tracking torpedoes and planes. Atlantic Fleet battle groups are trained there before they are deployed.

Military officials have maintained that training at Vieques is the only way to verify that its aircraft and ships are combat-ready.

Many Puerto Ricans, especially Gov. Sila Calderon, have complained that the bombing jeopardizes health and economic development on the island. On Wednesday, Calderon made her first visit to Vieques since becoming governor.

President Clinton and former Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello had cut a deal to put the issue to a vote. A referendum this year would give voters the choice of ejecting the Navy by 2003, or allowing them to stay in exchange for millions in federal economic development aid.

In April, a federal judge refused to block naval bombing on Vieques, saying there was insufficient evidence that the exercises would irreparably harm residents of the island.